The normal path for many academics is to ignore the wider uses of their research:
“I saw a number of studies [at an academic conference] this weekend that working journalists would find fascinating and helpful. Yet they’re not available in forms I’d feel comfortable sending around the newsroom. In fact, I’ve never seen scholarship cited in the newsroom that wasn’t accompanied by a readable narrative translation of its findings. I understand that most scholarship is pointed at the academy rather than the industry. But that shouldn’t preclude industry-relevant conclusions from being written up in industry-readable language.”
Quoting Matt Thompson, who is “currently undertaking a year-long research fellowship with the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri, previously the deputy Web editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.” Newsless.org